What Is an eBay PowerSeller? Top Rated Seller?

When you browse through the items on eBay, you're bound to notice a Top Rated Seller icon next to some sellers' user IDs. To the uninitiated, this may look like an award given to a person who's sold hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of merchandise on eBay — but it's not. The eBay Top Rated status is given only to those sellers who uphold the highest levels of professionalism on the site — and topmost is Top Rated Seller Plus.

A proudly displayed Top Rated Seller badge.

There are three levels of upgraded status for eBay sellers:

PowerSellers: These members have to maintain certain monthly levels of gross merchandise sales (total dollar amount of eBay sales — GMS in eBay-speak), and they must get there by providing excellent customer service.

Top Rated Sellers: eBay sellers at this level don't have to have as large volume of sales as an eBay PowerSeller, but they face stricter customer service requirements.

Top Rated Seller Plus: Only the sellers who fully commit to their businesses get this status. In searches, only Top Rated Plus sellers have badges next to their listings.

TobecomeaTopRatedSelleroneBay, fulfill the following requirements:

Active eBay member for at least 90 days.

100 or more transactions with U.S. sellers within the past year.

$1,000 minimum in annual sales to U.S. buyers.

Fewer than 0.5 percent Buyer Protection cases out of your total number of transactions with U.S. buyers.

At least a 98 feedback percentage maintained.

eBay account kept current.

Compliance with all eBay policies.

Occurrences of 1s and 2s on DSRs with U.S. buyers does not exceed the maximum.

Tracking numbers uploaded to eBay/PayPal for at least 90% of your transactions.

TopRatedSellerPlus: To align with evolving consumer expectations, eBay updated the uppermost Top Rated Seller status to "Plus." These are the only sellers to receive a badge; the Top Rated Plus seal appears on all these sellers' listings.

It isn't a very big jump to attain "Plus" status once you're a Top Rated Seller. After you meet the Top Rated Seller requirements, you have only these two additional requirements to meet:

One-day handling: Include 1-day handling in your listings (meaning you ship within one day of purchase) and post the tracking.

Many sellers find these last two requirements too onerous and don't even attempt Top Rated Plus status. That's a bit shortsighted; there are money-saving benefits for providing top-notch customer service.